Denver dancin’ in NBA bracket
Hey, how’s your NCAA tourney bracket looking? Everything is going swimmingly in my office pool, because I’ve picked a team that can’t be beat in March Madness: The Nuggets. After trouncing the shorthanded Los Angeles Clippers 129-114 on Thursday night, the Nuggets cling to the final playoff berth in the Western Conference. But Denver can put five young pups on the court who would rout Duke or anybody else in the NCAA field of 68 by at least 15 points.
The relevant point? These baby blue Nuggets are not only good, they’re also no older than college kids.
Would this starting lineup be any good in the Big Dance?
Center: Nikola Jokic (age 22) was taken by the Nuggets with the 41st pick of the 2015 NBA draft. If he were a senior at Duke now, coach Mike Krzyzewski would have a mancrush on him, and Jokic would be near the top of everybody’s draft board.
Power forward: Juancho Hernangomez (21) led Spain in scoring at the under-20 European championships two years ago. Not bad. Even better: As an NBA rookie, Hernangomez scored 27
points against Golden State.
Wing: Malik Beasley (20) has traveled the dusty trail between Sioux Falls, S.D., of the D-League and Denver so often, he’s on a first-name basis with all the dudes on Mount Rushmore. Beasley could be a sophomore at Florida State, and if he were, the Seminoles would be Final Four bound.
Combo guard: Jamal Murray (20) is a graduate of the John Calipari Cotillion and Finishing School, where precocious teenagers get a crash course in ordering room service from five-star NBA hotels. Asked how much attention he’s pay- ing to the NCAA tourney, Murray responded he doesn’t watch basketball, he plays it. Murray is a young man way too cool for school (a good thing, when you’re battling Chris Paul or Steph Curry at work).
Point guard: Emmanuel Mudiay (21) could be a junior at Southern Methodist. Instead, he took the money and a detour to China, before joining the NBA, where the flaws in his jumper have been exposed. From the end of the bench, Mudiay serves as a cautionary tale of how a college education can be priceless for a basketball prospect with much to learn.
Jokic, who recorded his fifth triple-double over the past 18 games with 17 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists against the Clippers, hogs the headlines. But the five baby blue Nuggets have played a total of nearly 5,000 minutes already this season. Some acclaimed NBA coaches have an inherent distrust of young players. (Does the name George Karl ring a bell?) Coach Michael Malone lets the kids grow.
The one common attribute he looks for in every young NBA player: “A guy who’s going to go out there every night and leave it out on the floor, and truly hates to lose rather than likes to win, because there’s a big difference,” Malone said.
Malone has no shot at being named NBA coach of the year, an honor richly deserved by San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich or Boston’s Brad Stevens. Some forever-bitter Nuggets fans still take Malone’s name in vain, because he’s not Karl. Maybe they should try smiling with gratitude for how Malone has tutored the development of rising stars Jokic and Murray.
A big reason to get excited about this Denver team is a core of players so young they would not look out of place on the North Carolina Tar Heels team bus. These guys could be dancing in March.
The baby blue Nuggets instead have their eyes on crashing a more exclusive party: the NBA playoffs.